Police: Sex offender may have drugged teen runaway

Police testing teen's drink at crime lab

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INDIANAPOLIS - Lab tests were ordered on a teenage runaway's drink after she was found in the car of a registered sex offender on the east side of Indianapolis.

Police found the 16-year-old confirmed runaway in a parked car on Tuesday morning outside the Marathon gas station on North Rural Street at East 10th Street.

Officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said they approached the car because it matched the description of a car in a recent crime. The 35-year-old driver told police he did not know his teenage passenger, having just offered her a ride as she walked along East Washington Street.

Officers wrote in their report that the girl seemed to be under the influence of some kind of drugs.

She was removed from the car and she told officers that the man had poured a clear liquid in a water bottle, telling her it contained GHB, also commonly known as the 'date rape drug.'

Police grabbed the water bottle and took it for testing at the crime lab, officers wrote in their report.

Medics were called and the teen was taken to Methodist Hospital for treatment.

Police said they then found out that the driver was a registered sex offender from Plainfield, Ore.

He was not arrested, but detectives from Oregon were notified as well as local police who track registered sex offenders to make sure they are complying with their court-ordered restrictions.

Police said they asked the man whether the teenager had been drugged but he replied that he did not know since he had just picked her up off the street.

If detectives gather enough evidence that he provided her with GHB or any other drug, or if he is found to have violated any of his restrictions involving staying away from children, new charges could be filed.

The Call 6 Investigators are not naming the sex offender because he has not yet been charged with a crime from Tuesday's encounter.

The girl told police that the man poured a clear liquid into the cap of the clear water bottle, telling her it contained GHB and that she should drink it.